Right out of college I was hired by an arrogant blow-hard of a boss. It was a small company... just him, me a part-time assistant and four freelancers. I had worked there for two years, getting regular paychecks -- everything was pretty normal. Then one day, the guy calls me into his office. It seemed that though he had been withholding taxes and Social Security from my wages, he wasn't actually sending that money in to the IRS. He had talked to his accountant and the scheme they worked out was to make me an independent contractor, retroactively to my start date. To do that, he needed his accountant to do my taxes.